An amusing story that asks readers to engage with moral gray areas.
The summer after eighth grade, Perry Homer is focused on entering a prep school where he can turn over a new leaf.
Perry learned about “the rush” from his father—it’s that feeling that you’re above the rules. From Uncle Manny he learned to maximize loopholes and, from his mom, to watch for tells. But Perry longs to leave his con artist family behind, and with the help of a supportive teacher, he sets his sights on winning a scholarship to New York’s Ithaca School for Scholars, where he can be “Good Perry” from now on. Unfortunately, the Homer family must pull a few more swindles to get back home to Pittsburgh from their summer vacation, and Perry, desperate to get back in time for the interview, is quickly drawn in. A pawnshop deception and a hotel room scam keep Perry engaged in the family chaos. While the Homers are lying low at a wildcat sanctuary, Perry observes his family members finding their own measures of honest contentment. Yet he feels empty, so he sets about apologizing to the people he’s wronged. As summer ends, Perry takes off for a last-ditch chance at the scholarship interview. The Homers are antihero protagonists, and even well-intentioned Perry’s actions can seem questionable. Serious themes sometimes feel awkwardly dropped in amid the over-the-top antics, although they do support Perry’s growth. Most main characters are cued white.
An amusing story that asks readers to engage with moral gray areas. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781665918640
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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